U.S. Pat. No. 6,823,813 (“Mazin”) discloses a leg mounted propulsion device for swimmers and divers. Propulsion units are attached to the diver's legs. A battery pack is either attached as a weight belt or as a cylinder beside the air tank. A controller is attached to the belt beside the buckle on the stomach of the diver.
Mazin may suffer from a number of disadvantages including lack of adequate sealing for the battery pack, lack of modularity, difficulty of access to the controller (especially when the diver's hands are already holding other equipment), lack of flexibility in control, and/or lack of user friendliness and difficulty of user servicing.
There is also a range of other propulsion devices known in the art. For example tow type designs disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,996,938 and 5,469,803; different kinds of body strap designs disclosed in International patent publication numbers 02072382 and 2004062744, French patent numbers 2608441 and 2763512, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,635,188 and 4,700,654; push type designs strapped between the knees; and tank mounted designs disclosed in International patent publication numbers 8602613, 2004050473 and 2005080194, U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,868, US patent publication number 2006243188 and Australian patent number 8070794.
It would be desirable to provide a submersible or underwater propulsion device which overcomes one or more of these disadvantages and/or which at least provides the public with a useful choice.